


Swing

by Anonymous



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Bottom Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Canon-Typical Violence, Dancing, Edith Piaf - Freeform, Forgive Me, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani Waxes Poetic About Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, Set somewhere during the 1940's, Smut, Soft Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Swing Dancing, and also sex swinging, hand waving at historical accuracy, literally wrote the bulk of this at 3am, mentions of previous bad sex, slightly subby Booker, they do the do, vague timeline, warfare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:34:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26629102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: On occasion, Sebastian dances.Very rarely and usually drunkenly, when the past is far behind him and the future lays bright and sturdy at his feet.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39
Collections: Anonymous





	Swing

On occasion, Sebastian dances.

Very rarely and usually drunkenly, when the past is far behind him and the future lays bright and sturdy at his feet. It is a wonder to watch the way he moves with abandon, his body rolling and writhing beneath the hands of another. It is like watching a different person, the rigidity that Sebastian usually carries is gone. The line between his brows has been soothed away, there is an ease to his smile that Yusuf so rarely sees. In fact, he can't remember the last time that Sebastian smiled and actually meant it. Perhaps this change in Booker is thanks to the alcohol and opium combination that he had taken just moments before entering the club. Perhaps it's the war that they've been fighting, finally coming to a close or the beauty of the sky, no longer littered with bombs and the belly of aeroplanes.

Regardless, Sebastian has decided to throw caution to the wind tonight and it is a _wonderful_ sight to see.

If only Nicolo and Andromache were here to see it too, they would be just as entranced as Yusuf is. But sadly, they are still a few days out from the rendezvous point, leaving Yusuf and Booker alone to drink and be merry, keeping the house lit and warm until the pair can finally catch up with them.

Edith Piaf sings over the radio speakers. Her smoky little voice croons _'Non Je ne regrette rien,'_ and while a few of the American soldiers groan in distaste at the song, more than half of them still continue to dance and the music sets Booker _ablaze._

 _"Yusuf,"_ he calls out, his face flushed and eyes bright. His hair is slicked back in that handsome way that the picture stars have been wearing lately. Nicolo has a similar style, and Yusuf likes to run his fingers through it, disturbing the gel and slick edges until his lover's hair is a mess worthy of birds to live in.

"Yusuf!" Booker shouts again. "Come dance with me."

Yusuf quirks his brow at the invitation, eyeing the crowd of dancers that Booker is sandwiched between. Booker quickly nudges them away until there is enough space for them to stand together. He holds a hand out to Yusuf and pulls him onto the dance floor but overextends his reach and falls flush against the length of Yusuf's body. 

"You're _sloshed_ ," Yusuf laughs, righting Booker with a pat to his chest. "Those drinks really did you in, didn't they?"

Booker waves Yusuf's words away, far too preoccupied with getting him onto the dance floor rather than focusing on sobering himself up. Later, when the morning comes and his head is painfully clear, he'll regret the foolish way that he's acted. But for now, he is blissfully drunk, high, and utterly _vibing_ with France's sweetheart who sings like a bird despite the scratch of the cheap American speakers.

Yusuf laughs again, amused by his antics, and Booker really _likes_ the sound of that, far more than he should _._

"Do you swing?" Yusuf asks, his hands on Booker's hips, swaying him slightly in a rhythm that matches his own.

_For you? Yes._

Booker almost makes a fool out of himself by spitting those very words out before realizing the true meaning behind Yusuf's question and when he does, he can't help but feel offended.

"Yes, obviously Yusuf! Why? What did it look like I was doing on this dance floor for the past three songs?"

"Oh I don't know, I saw you flailing about..."

"I wasn't flailing," Booker says, indignant. 

Edith Piaf sings her final note as the song switches to something quicker tempo and jazz-like.

"...And thought hat maybe I could teach you a step or two."

"I already know how to Swing-" Booker starts but then Yusuf is swinging him out so quickly that Booker swears he can see stars. Yusuf kicks his feet out into a Lindy Hop with all the flair of Gene Kelly, before twirling Booker back around until the both of them are once again pressed up against each other, chest to chest.

Booker's head is spinning. 

"Did I strike you speechless?" Yusuf asks him with a wink. "I never thought I'd see the day my friend."

Yusuf pats him on the cheek and Booker can't help but lean into it. Yusuf is so much like the sun that some days Booker can not help himself from getting lost in his orbit.

On the battlefield, when they were knee-deep in the trenches, crawling over bodies of forgotten soldiers half-buried in the mud, Booker thought he'd go mad from it all. Napolean's army echoed in the forefront of his mind. Soldiers starved and died gruesome deaths. Booker himself, caught the wrong end of a bullet and fell into the trenches many times. Yusuf found him and dug him out with his bare hands, fingernails tearing and bleeding from the thick of it. Yusuf kept his head level. Yusuf kept a smile on his face and he did his best to keep the morale high. Singing, despite the loudness of the bombs and cracking jokes to dying men in an effort to distract them from pain and despair.

Even covered in blood and dirt, Yusuf shown like the sun.

Booker fell in love with him that day. He wouldn't be surprised if _all_ of their fellow soldiers did too.

"Booker," he says again. "Are you-"

Booker kisses him.

He grabs hold of the sides of Yusuf's face and he _kisses_ him.

For a moment, a quick, blissful _moment_ , Yusuf kisses him _back_ , but then he is pushing Booker away from him with an unreadable look on his face that makes Booker wish that Yusuf had left him behind and buried in the trenches.

"Not here," Yusuf says, grabbing hold of him by the arm and leading him out the back of the club and into the alley.

When the door closes behind them, cutting off the sound of music and laughter, Booker fully expects to be struck. And if not struck, then at least a brutal ear-lashing that he knows he'll never be able to recover from.

To save whatever little camaraderie they have left between each other, Booker jumps headfirst into an apology. 

"I-I'm sorry, Yusuf. I hadn't meant-"

"To kiss me?"

"Yes. I was drunk. I wasn't thinking straight."

Yusuf doesn't speak for a long time. Booker nearly flinches when he finally does.

"Well. I suppose that's a disappointment that I'll have to live with."

"I-I'm sorry? What?"

"For a French man you are quite attractive," Yusuf says with a shrug. "But if you truly meant it as a mistake, then we won't speak of it again."

"I..." _Am dumbfounded._ Booker thinks. And then, because he can't help himself. "W-what about Nicolo?"

"Nicky holds my heart in his chest. He is the very air that I breathe." Yusuf says it with such intensity that Booker feels as though he must look away from him. "Just as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, there is nothing that can ever change my love for him...It would go against nature itself, to do so."

Yusuf nudges Booker's chin up and admires the flush that paints its way across his cheekbones.

"However, that is not to say that Nicky and I have not indulged in other people or shared lovers before. In fact, before you came to us, the three of us would-"

"The three of you? Andromache?"

"Yes, Andromache. The three of us held quite the sexual marathons back in the day."

Booker gulps.

"The point is, Booker. If you are ever looking for comfort in someone who understands how strange of a life we have been given, you need only ask."

Yusuf traces the plush of his lip with the pad of his thumb.

"Now, did you want something?"

Yusuf's gaze is dark and heated. It stirs something deep inside of Booker, makes his face heat up with blush and his cock twitch in his trousers. His stomach tightens in anticipation.

"Yes," he says and pauses for a moment to think it over. He licks the tip of Yusuf's thumb by accident when says "All of it. I want all of it."

If Yusuf is surprised he makes no indication. 

"Have you done that before, Booker?" Yusuf runs his fingers through Booker's hair, disrupting the style. It makes him shiver with _want._

He nods his head _yes._

"When?"

_When?_

Long ago. Far too long ago.

"During the Grande Armée," Booker says softly. He tries hard not to think about his time there. Does his best to drink away the feeling of a noose wrapped 'round his neck. The cold bite of snow on his extremities and the countless soldiers that he used to let take him to bed, just so he could _feel_ something other than the godforsaken cold, despite the pain it sometimes caused him.

"I've done it before," Booker says. "It's...it's usually not my thing but...I want to do it again. With you." God knows why, Booker shouts at himself. _God knows why you'd want to do it again when the ache of being fucked open never brought much pleasure to begin with!_

But some nights, when Booker can not sleep and he feels the absence of his wife beside him, he wants nothing more than to touch and be touched in that wholly encompassing way again.

And sometimes, when he is awake and aching in the wee hours of the night, he has heard the noises that Yusuf and Nicolo make and felt turned on by it. 

_Surely it couldn't be so bad? Not with Yusuf? Or Nicolo, for that matter._

Booker takes a deep breath, he grabs hold of Yusuf and brings him close for another kiss, stops inches away from his lips, and asks "Please? I'd like to do it again," before pressing his mouth smack against Yusuf's own. It feels like such a _thrill_ to do so.

"Okay," Yusuf laughs against him. "Let's get back to the safe-house."

*

"You've still got opium eyes, _mon_ _ami_ ," Yusuf says, pushing Booker down gently and flat against the bed. His legs fall open slightly and Yusuf stands between them. "Are you sure you're not seeing double?" he teases, crawling over the Frenchman and waving a hand over him.

Booker catches him by the wrist and brings Yusuf's hand down to his face. He takes Yusuf's fingers into his mouth, sucking on the nimble digits in a desperate way that Booker will cringe to remember come morning. But Yusuf has always had beautiful hands, an artist's hands, and Booker has wanted to do that for far longer than he's willing to admit.

Yusuf smiles down at him, extracts his fingers from Booker's mouth, and places a kiss to the corner of his lips before whispering against the shell of his ear "I don't think you're sober, friend."

He leans back from his position over Booker and Booker nearly cries out from the loss.

Sober? What is sober to a man who has spent the first century of his life constantly drunk and grieving? What is sober to a man who dreams of drowning, of his children dying, of the crows coming down to peck out his eyes while he hung from the gallows each night? 

Booker is slightly buzzed at best. The alcohol wore off an hour ago, the opium is simply doing its best to keep him pliant and _wanting._ It's as sober as he is going to get.

"This is me sober, Yusuf," Booker says sagely.

Yusuf frowns slightly. There is a worried look in his eyes that he sometimes gets whenever Booker speaks about such things.

Booker reaches out for him again and brings Yusuf close enough to kiss. 

"You don't need to worry about me changing my mind," Booker says, mouthing at the crook of Yusuf's jaw. "I'll still want you in the morning, I- I have wanted you for some time now," Booker says, stammering over the admission, face turning hot with a blush. His tongue is too loose. It appears that opium makes him dangerously honest.

"Have you, now?" Yusuf laughs. A smile crosses his face. Booker can't help but feel reassured by it. "Funny, all this time we thought you were painfully straight."

 _I am,_ Booker almost says. It is his default answer whenever he is asked such a question but he supposes that he isn't...Not truly, at least. Yes, he has slept with men before in the army but that had been...something else entirely. If he's being honest with himself (and opium has a way of encouraging that honesty) there have been times before and even after the war, when he found himself attracted to men just as much as he was to women, and far too terrified to do a thing about it.

"I don't know what I am," Booker says instead. "I don't know what-"

"It's okay not to know," Yusuf hums, cradling Booker's head in the palm of his hands. "Not everything has to be certain."

He pushes Booker back down against the bed, lays himself flat against him, and kisses his way down to the first button of his shirt before popping it open with ease. Booker runs his fingers through Yusuf's curls, cradles the back of his head, and jumps when Yusuf starts to nibble lightly at the peak of his nipples.

 _"F-fuck,"_ he breathes, head thrown back against the bed. 

Yusuf laughs against his skin, pulls the rest of his shirt open, and reachers for the belt of his trousers. Booker moves his hips forward into Yusuf's hands, arching his back against the mattress, aching to be held and touched and kissed. All of the little niceties that he was never granted from his lovers in the war.

All of the niceties that he imagines Nicolo is bestowed upon each and every night that he warms Yusuf's bed.

Yusuf hums while he takes his suspenders off and then his own shirt, tossing it behind him and into the growing pile of clothes in the corner.

Booker does his best to rut up against Yusuf's legs, still caught between his own. He grinds his sensitive flesh against the thread of Yusuf's trousers and nearly cums from the friction alone.

"Eager, are we?" Yusuf laughs.

 _Yes,_ Booker moans, for far more than he deserves.

*

Unclothed and writhing beneath Yusuf on the bedsheets, Booker begs the man to hurry up, bucking against his hands, pushing back against the fingers that Yusuf has tucked deep inside of him. The lube was a wonderful idea. Something that Booker wished he had back when he first started doing things like this in the war. 

"Just one more," Yusuf sighs against him, pressing a kiss to the curve of his hip just inches away from Booker's aching dick.

Booker shudders as the fourth digit enters him. Winces a bit at the fullness and then gasps when it hits that spot inside of him that makes him see stars. Booker grabs hold of his own dick to keep it from spouting off and ruining the whole endeavor prematurely.

Yusuf grins mischievously at him before pushing Booker's hands aside and licking a stripe down the curve of his cock. Booker hisses out a curse.

"D-don't or I'll-"  
  
"Go ahead. We have all night," Yusuf laughs, pressing that spot deep inside of him again. 

A moan cuts its way out of Booker, he shakes his head against the pleasure and tries to ground himself.

"N-non. No, I want to cum with you i-inside." 

"Is that so?"

Booker can do nothing but nod, panting as Yusuf spreads his fingers ever so slightly inside of him.

"I guess I better hurry up then, yes?"

He retracts his fingers from Booker, ever so gently, before taking the lube left over and slicking his own cock with it.

Yusuf grabs hold of Booker's legs, bringing them up to rest on either side of his waist. He gives Booker an idle stroke, petting his sides and down to the crease where leg meets rear, before leaning forwards and capturing him in a kiss.

"For the longest time, Booker, you hid from us," Yusuf says quietly, pressing a kiss to each brow. "Some days when I sat across from you it was like you hated me. Like you hated Nicolo and Andy, even."

Yusuf presses inside of him then.

The familiar stretch of being speared open has a subtle lick of pain to it, but it is quickly overridden with a kiss from Yusuf and the slick feeling of pleasure that oozes its way into his bones with each and every inch that Yusuf is capable of pushing inside of him.

Booker doesn't feel gutted, or left flayed open and gaping for the next soldier who wants to try and carve comfort into his pliable and willing body.

He practically sings with every thrust and every touch that Yusuf gives him, but the man's words make Booker want to turn his face away in shame.

Had he hid from them? Yes. Had he hated them? Yes _._ For too long of a time. He had hated them and blamed them for all of the changes that they brought into his life. He blamed them for the death of his wife and children, for the memories of the war that continued to creep up on him at night when those memories should've been dead and buried with him the very first time that he ever died.

A thousand deaths they brought him.

A thousand lifetimes full of misery and war that would never come to end.

It's dizzying to think about. He requires a stiff drink on a good day just to get through it all, but the slide of their bodies together and the shame that he feels for hating them when really he only ever hated himself, is enough to make his head spin.

Booker turns away from Yusuf, shielding himself from the shine of him, and the shame written so plainly on his own face.

Yusuf _tsks_ with displeasure, he cradles the side of Booker's face and angles him back to look at him before thrusting completely _inside._

Booker's mouth drops open with a moan. 

"You don't need to hide from us Booker. None of us need to hide anymore. That's why we're here together on this earth. To be there for each other, to be a family."

Automatically, Booker thinks, _Misery loves company_. Because he is a contrary man first and foremost. Incapable of taking pleasantries sent his way, no matter how much he may crave them.

"We are destined to be together, as our dear Nicolo always says,” Yusuf hums, rolling his hips in a way that turns Booker’s limbs into jelly.

Now, there is no doubt in Booker's mind that Yusuf means what he is saying. There is no doubt at all, that he and Nicolo believe in their philosophies wholeheartedly.

It's just that, Booker's own philosophy is based on something more _guttural_ and more _concrete,_ than fate and romantics.

“We love you, Booker,” Yusuf hums into the cradle of his neck. “All you have to do is reach out to us and we will always be here.”

 _What about Quynh?,_ thinks Booker, _What about_ _Lykon?_

Yusuf kisses him again and Booker does his best to accept it with all of the flourish and all of the care that Yusuf is doing his best to bestow upon him but he feels too sober now. Too _raw._ He is on the wrong side of his high and he can feel it crashing down all around him.

Booker meant what he said when he told Yusuf that he would not regret this in the morning, but he knows deep down, once Nicolo is back, there will be no place for him here.

No place at all. 

That particular thought causes Booker's erection to flag somewhat. It settles softly against the curve of his abdomen.

Yusuf's brow creases with worry, he stills himself.

"Am I hurting you?" 

_No._ Booker thinks. _Not at all_ , but he wishes that Yusuf would.

**Author's Note:**

> Alrighty so I do technically have more of this written but I chose to end it here cus I'm not sure where/how I want to continue the fic? I definitely want Nicky to be more involved if I do an update but that won't be for a while. 
> 
> Anyways,  
> Here's some fun facts I learned along the way!
> 
> *Opium was a drug brought back to Europe during the crusades (So I'm willing to bet money that both Yusuf and Nicky have had some experience with it?) After it was brought to Europe, the opium market friggin' boomed! Have a cough? Try some opium! Got nightmares? Try some opium! Wanna dance the night away and celebrate the end of a war and also throw your ass back? Try some opium! 
> 
> *Swing and the Lindy Hop were dances that originated from Harlem! It was an infusion of African and European dance moves (I saw an awesome dance video with black dancers that was titled 'Doing the Whitey Lindy Hop' which was kind of humorous. Anyways, that style of dance caught on during the Jazz movement and quickly became one of the most popular forms of dance in the 40's/50's era
> 
> *Edith Piaf released Non Regrette Rien sometime in the 60's so the timeline for this fic is absolutely fucked but I love that song and wanted to include it.
> 
> Anyways, Ya'll should go watch some Swing and Lindy Hop videos form the 1940's! It's very impressive.


End file.
